


Under the Shadow

by Tammany



Series: Mycroft's Vulnerable [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet another story I don't know quite how to summarize. People wanted a sequel to "The Boundaries of Touch." This is what happened. Here's the continuity, for any of you following my Mycroft stuff. "Boundaries" happens, sometime late in the exile, before Sherlock's return. So does "A Brother's Gift," with Mycroft having to master his own fears to go fetch baby brother home from Serbia. However "Aftermath," when Mycroft mourns the outcome of "His Last Vow" with Lestrade, quite explicitly does not. The Mycroft in this version has spent at least a week dealing with the events of "Vow" and the aftermath alone and without support. To his surprise, events finally catch up with him...including the delayed trauma first suggested in "Boundaries." </p><p>I am not sure what I think of this one. I'm going to have to let it sit for awhile before I decide if it's right, or not. Hope it's at least interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Shadow

There are times in your life that you know in a split second that everything is now different, and you’re playing for keeps. When you feel the tread of your tires let go on sheet ice. When a child falls on stone and you hear something crack. When a bust goes wrong and a gun comes out and the next thing you’re doing is calmly telling your DIS to call the paramedics as your shirt turns red and the world turns dim.

Lestrade had experienced these, and more. He’d done the one where “Sherlock is dead.” And the one where “No, he’s not, but you’ve got to help us keep the cover story going.” He’d done the “Damn, you’re back,” and the “What do you mean, you’re leaving again? Why?”

That last one had been five days ago, and he still didn’t know why. Sherlock hadn’t been talking, and Mycroft, when they’d spoken, had said only, “I can’t tell you. If it were any higher, I’d be out of the loop and even Her Majesty would require special clearance.”

Six hours ago, Jim Moriarty’s face had appeared on screens across the nation as a gif.

Three hours ago Sherlock had called to say, “Not leaving after all!” Still with no explanation. Of course.

Since then? Since then Lestrade had done what Lestrade did best: keep calm and carry on. Someone would tell him what he needed to know—or was allowed to know—eventually, and until they did it was absolutely, positively _not_ his division, and so there. In truth, he didn’t expect to ever know much. He’d learned to live with a lot of unanswered questions over the years. He expected this to be one more.

He’d headed straight home from the pub after the Moriarty broadcast had ended. He’d showered, changed into exercise trousers and a soft, hooded jumper with the double-headed eagle crest of AFC Wimbledon on the chest. He’d rummaged in his fridge and put together a cheese and chutney sandwich for dinner. After consideration he’d brewed himself a tankard-sized mug of tea (strong, sweet, white) and settled in front of the telly, clicking past the inevitable run of new announcers blathering on about “Today’s Incident,” spending hours finding more and more pompous, evasive ways of saying, “No one knows anything.”

Approximately six and a half hours after Moriarty’s face had graced all England’s screens, there was a knock at the door of Lestrade’s flat. He got up, shouting, “Yeah, coming, hang on a mo’,” and scooted over, opening the door to find Mycroft Holmes outside, stiff and straight as a flag pole, and looking for all the world like the first victim of the zombie apocalypse. Eyes too wide with shock met Lestrade’s; Mycroft opened his mouth—and said nothing. Closed it. Opened it again, once more to silence. He gave an odd little cough, as though somewhere in his mind breathing and talking and choking were getting tangled.

His presence was so unexpected, his shock so disturbing, it took Lestrade a moment to even put it all together into anything like a coherent evaluation. Instead he got a collage of thoughts as muddled as Mycroft’s attempts at breathing.

Mycroft*broken*What?*Moriarty?*Mycroft here?*Shock.Sherlock?* Mycroft…

Eyes—too wide. Sweating.

That’s shock.

That’s shock.

That is Mycroft in shock.

Fuck.

“Here, come in.” He opened the door wide, ushering Mycroft over the threshold. The man didn’t move, just staring at Lestrade. He had his umbrella handle in one hand, the tip planted in the cheap synthetic carpet in the corridor outside the flat entrance.

Lestrade blinked at him, then said, softly, “You’re really screwed, aren’t you?”

Mycroft gulped, and then nodded, once, soberly.

“Ok. Been there. Just…come on in.” Lestrade gripped the cuff of Mycroft’s coat sleeve and gently tugged, pulling the other man into motion, easing him into the room. Once he was in, Lestrade closed the door, then said, “Let me help you out of that.” He moved to face Mycroft, drawing the coat lapels back, helping him shrug out, carefully catching both coat and umbrella as Mycroft managed to sort out what he was doing. “Jacket, too. No, don’t argue. Jacket, waistcoat, tie off, open that collar. Air and nothing binding. I’ll get you a blanket if you’re cold.” He collected the items of clothing, draped them over the coat rack near the door, then walked Mycroft over to the sofa. “Nothing important on the telly. Want it on, or off?”

Mycroft stared at it, then managed his first words. “On. Pleasantly stupid.”

It was a start. “Tea?”

“Oh, God, yes.”

“How?”

“Hot. White. Syrup.”

Lestrade snorted, relieved that even in shock Mycroft’s acid wit was working. “I can do that.” He hurried out and flicked the kettle on, glad there was still hot water. While it came back up to a boil he scrambled for another king-sized mug, and prepped, even putting a small cup of milk in the microwave to warm. In a few minutes he was back with Mycroft, pressing the mug into his hands. “There. Get that inside. Nothing like a cuppa…”

Mycroft gave a soft hum, and leaned into the cup, seeming ready to drink until he hit bottom.

“Hey, don’t scald yourself.”

Mycroft looked up. “Not that hot.” Then he dove back in. After a moment he handed the mug toward Lestrade. “More?”

Lestrade laughed. “Ok. Now I can actually believe you’re alive in there. Hang on.” He went out, repeated his previous round, and returned, having filled the kettle in case Mycroft sucked down another tankard like tea was going off the shelves forever and this was his last chance to indulge. “Ok. There you go. Now…what happened? Something go wrong?”

Mycroft shook his head, long fingers wrapping tight around the cheap pottery mug. “I don’t know.” His voice started to tremble. “I don’t know. It should have…I thought… I thought I’d feel _better._ ” He pulled together, as though he could shrink, and a shiver started.

“Blanket?”

He nodded. Lestrade found a fleece throw his niece had sent him: lapis blue with a rather questionable image of a red deer stag on it, looking very “Monarch of the Glen.” He wrapped it over Mycroft’s shoulders, and crossed it over his chest.

The look Mycroft gave the blanket left Lestrade wondering for one short second whether his patient was going to die of disgust right there on his sofa. Then the man sighed, and actually seemed to nestle into the heavy folds.

“Warm,” he said, briefly, and took another sip of tea.

“That’s the general idea, yeah.” He didn’t add that the ginger looked rather good in cobalt blue and russet brown. If nothing else, he looked like he had blood in his veins, not formaldehyde.

Lestrade coiled himself at the far end of the couch, unsure what he was supposed to do next, but remembering all too well that Mycroft was uneasy with too much physical intimacy. It put Lestrade at a disadvantage: his own instinct was to go for all the basic contact he could manage short of shagging, and even shagging wasn’t right out under some circumstances. Faced with the kind of glassy-eyed shock Mycroft had come in with, he wanted to reach out, haul him close, and prove physically and unarguably that someone was there, with him. Pat him and touch his hands and put an arm around his shoulders—anything to get through to the traumatized primate inside that prim exterior—the one gibbering in the dark and screaming at shadows.

That didn’t work with Mycroft—or at least, not as a first move. Final stage, perhaps. In the meantime, Mycroft was words, gestures, silences, and little acts of kindness. And patience. Lots of patience.

“What happened?”

Mycroft frowned at his tea mug, “I really don’t know. It should have been good. You saw that recording of Moriarty?”

“Who didn’t?”

“I suspect Anthea’s got a report that can answer that question waiting on my desk already.”

“It was rhetorical, Mycroft.”

Mycroft looked up, shaken that he’d missed such an obvious cue. “Oh.”

“Never mind. Just—Ok. Moriarty?”

Mycroft sniffed. “I find it profoundly unlikely that James Moriarty is alive. Impossible, in fact. I examined the body quite completely myself, and we had multiple DNA tests run. James Moriarty died over two years ago on the roof of St. Bart’s, dead by his own hand. But someone wishes to suggest he is not—and that someone has the ability to completely subvert Britain’s broadcast system. Of the two critical details in this, it’s the ability to take over our broadcast system that concerns me.”

Lestrade watched Mycroft slowly pulling himself back together as he presented his statement, then said, softly, “Yeah. But what happened? You’re running off and avoiding the real problem. Thinking too much, not paying attention. Why are you here, Mycroft?”

Myrcoft frowned, opened his mouth, clearly about to snap back…then stopped. His eyes dropped. “I don’t know. The broadcast panicked my associates. As a result they let me bring Sherlock back. I was…happy about that. Quite pleased, in fact.” He sighed. “I was more than a little concerned that this time I wouldn’t be able to bring Sherlock back in time. Suicide missions can be such delicate things… so hard to safely subvert. I was more than a little frightened we were finally in too deep. I would have quite disliked that.”

Lestrade sighed and buried his head in his hands, running his fingers through close-cropped hair. “Ok. I think you’re going to have to backtrack, here. I’m out of the loop, remember? No idea what’s gone on. Fill me in.” When Mycroft didn’t respond, he looked up, and felt his stomach drop. The man was shifting back into shock.

This time he did risk contact—anything to jolt Mycroft out of his fast retreat. He rolled up onto his knees, and slipped a hand over Mycroft’s wrist, wrapping fingers firm and tight. “No. Come on. Deep breath. Yeah. Ok. Think it through, tell it clean and simple. We can go on from there, yeah?”

Mycroft nodded. “You’ve heard the reports of the death of Charles Augustus Magnussen?”

“Yeah. Spree killing, right? Still looking for the killer?”

“No. And no. I’m afraid Sherlock killed him. Not, you understand, a matter of public record.” Mycroft’s crumpled for a moment. “He… it was murder. An execution, really. Not undeserved, mind you. But Sherlock… it was murder.” He swallowed, then curled over his tea like a priest curling over his rosary. “It was so fast…”

“You were there?”

Mycroft nodded.

“Mycroft… words. Give me words. Please?”

“I don’t have them.” Mycroft glanced over, then back into his mug. “I still don’t understand it all. He won’t tell me why. John won’t tell me why. Magnussen was a monster. I’m quite sure he had information on John’s wife, Mary. But I don’t know why Sherlock chose that—to kill Magnussen in front of my special forces team.” He started to shake, then. Trying to steady himself, he overcompensated, sloshing tea. Sloshing tea, he startled, dropping the mug…then began to swear, softly, continuously, squatting and pulling out his pocket handkerchief, trying to blot the tea soaking into the carpet. “Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Oh, bugger.” Then he folded in on himself and started to cry almost silently, growling through his own sobs, “Why is it worse when it’s better?”

Lestrade scrambled off the sofa, taking the soaked handkerchief away from Mycroft and setting it on the coffee table. Mycroft reflexively wrapped his arms around himself, hands clutching his own biceps. Lestrade slid his own hands over Mycroft’s and waited.

It took awhile, but the dry, rasping grief became quiet, and stopped. Mycroft took a breath. Eyes shut tight, he said, “Sherlock and John stole state secrets and went to Magnussen’s house. I think Sherlock thought he was being clever, that I’d follow just in time to accomplish something—raid Magnussen’s house. There were rumors of information stored there. But we’d never confirmed, and there was nothing. But I had to follow—Lestrade, it was a full special forces raid. Helicopter. Automatic weapons. Lights sweeping the estate. I was trying to get Sherlock and John to step away—and he went crazy. He just—he shot the man through the forehead. My forces—they nearly took him out right then. He and John—I can’t tell you how close it was. I was shouting. Sherlock just…knelt. On the terrace. Put his hands behind his head. John was screaming, shouting behind him. My people—they stopped, but they didn’t know… he’d murdered him. One shot. An execution shot. Magnussen just lay there on the pavers, blood pooling behind his head, this one shot like a third eye in the middle of his forehead.”

Lestrade could feel the shake rattling through Mycroft’s whole body. He wanted to swear. This wasn’t a little thing, no matter how much Mycroft would have wanted to play Iceman. He’d watched his brother commit a murder. He’d nearly seen his brother die under fire from his own forces. He’d have had to take his own brother into custody.

Oh, Sherlock, he thought. You can be such a rubbish little brother, sometimes. Now what am I supposed to do with the mess you’ve made? Glue Mycroft back together with epoxy and sellotape? He was already beginning to come apart at the seams over old loss. Now this?

It would be so much easier if he could just drag Mycroft to the bedroom and screw him to temporary oblivion, let him rest in the aftermath and sleep. He’d done that for his ex-wife, once, when her mother had died. They’d practically torn the bed apart in her grief and need, then stood in the shower under the hot water while she cried and cried. She’d slept, afterward. It worked, for a time—answered a particular moment and a particular need. It wasn’t going to be the right choice now, though. If nothing else, he and Mycroft hadn’t been together that way since Sherlock’s return and Lestrade’s resumption of his role as Sherlock’s overseer and liaison between the two brothers in regards to London’s security.

“Look, let’s get up out of the spilled tea,” he said. “Sofa’s better than the floor for me these days anyway.” He stood, and helped Mycroft up.

“So sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“Oh for God’s sake, Mycroft, it’s a sodding horrible carpet anyway. One spill’s not going to make it worse than it already was. Just sit, you stupid berk.” He practically pushed Mycroft back onto the sofa.

The younger man settled himself primly, so neat and proper, like a child prepared to recite verses in Sunday School. Lestrade pushed that image, settling close, so that hip brushed hip and shoulder brushed shoulder. He pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees, and leaned slightly into the other man. He’d seen elephants at the London Zoo lean against each other like that, companionable. For that matter, he’d seen men a pubs or at football matches lean likewise, not close enough to set off their own intimacy alarms, but enough to reinforce the sense of companionship.

Neither said anything for a long time.

At last Mycroft said, plaintively, “I don’t know why it got worse. I’d had to bargain just to send Sherlock on a suicide mission. Six months. I had six months to try to figure a way to get him out of there alive…and I wasn’t feeling very confident. Why fall apart now, when they’re begging for Sherlock back?”

“Doesn’t make the other stuff go away.”

Mycroft sniffed, sulking. “I’ve dealt with worse without half this fuss.”

Lestrade said, grimly, “You’ve dealt with worse by turning yourself into a pretzel, you stupid daftie. We’ve been here, sunshine. Got your boundaries all messed up the first time, yeah? This is just the same thing.”

Mycroft shivered.

Lestrade risked a look sidewise, and swore, softly. “It is the same thing. Isn’t it?”

Mycroft shrugged. “It’s…”

“You’re triggering.”

Mycroft shrugged again.

Lestrade sighed as it fell into place. It hadn’t been that odd even without knowing about the death of Mycroft’s first lover. Knowing though, and knowing he’d never mourned properly the first time around? And he’d already been getting echoes of delayed grief before Sherlock came back, as long-avoided trauma started to surface. This mess with Sherlock? It would have been a miracle if it hadn’t set off echoes and avalanches of feeling.

He closed his eyes, feeling entirely out of his depth. How the hell was he supposed to deal with a Holmes dealing with more than even a Holmes ought to have to bear—and then having to cope with twenty-year-old delayed pain on top of it?

He wished he could find the sonofabitch who’d first invented the idea of the emotionless genius and wring his neck personally. Better to be a fool and a bloke—and cry when he needed to, even if it was in his beer down at the pub.

He didn’t leave, though. Just stayed on the sofa beside Mycroft Holmes, feeling the unending shiver, hearing the controlled breath. It wasn’t much, but it was as much as he knew to do.

He was pretty sure it wasn’t enough.

Then, to his surprise—no, his complete amazement—Mycroft turned, slowly and precisely, and leaned his face into Lestrade’s shoulder, and wept. Lestrade risked wrapping an arm around his friend and sometime lover’s shoulders.

It was very quiet grief. It went on for a long time. In the end, Mycroft fell asleep.

Lestrade, still holding him, remained awake for a long time after, though, wondering what happened next. Because one night’s tears were not enough to resolve twenty years repression topped off with Sherlock’s latest gaffe…

  
********

There is shadow under this red rock, |  _25_  
---|---  
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),  
And I will show you something different from either  
Your shadow at morning striding behind you  
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;  
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.  
  
.

The Wasteland

T.S. Eliot


End file.
